Before she could even speak he raised both his hands and said: “I have been a perfect ass, and if you want to ask your countess to order the footmen to beat me senseless I wouldn’t blame you a bit.”
Lucy laughed, and some of the awkwardness eased. They sat down beside one another on the bench beneath a cherry tree, its arms spread wide and decked with late summer’s greenery.
Stephen ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “I had no idea what people would say about that painting. I’m so very sorry, Lucy.”
“Why did you paint it?” Lucy blurted out. She felt hot and cold together, simultaneously angry and longing to forgive him. It nettled her, not to feel one comprehensible way. “If it was on account of the money—”
“No,” he said. “Well, sort of.”
“When the book was published I sent—”
“I know you did,” he burst in, then ran both hands through his hair and sighed.
Lucy folded her arms and gritted her teeth.
“Father told me to take care of you,” he said. “So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I cast countless lures out for portraits and commissions. I tried to paint what I thought would sell. I learned and studied and struggled and smiled at nearly everyone who I thought had a chance of offering me a post teaching their rambunctious brats how to draw slightly less poorly than before.”
He leaned his head up to the sky, eyes closed. Sunlight filtered through the tree branches and gilded the planes of his face.
There was more strain there than Lucy remembered.
She clenched her jaw harder against the sympathetic impulse. “I managed to do quite well on my own.”
The smile he turned on her was heartbreaking. “Yes. You did. You made yourself a grand success in less than a year, partly to spite me and prove me wrong—and then you sent me a large portion of the money you’d earned, with no sign that you were heading back home anytime soon. I know Lady Moth’s house must be more comfortable than what we’re used to in Lyme, but...” His hazel eyes rested on her, too observant. “Is Lady Moth a good patroness, or...?”
Lucy’s throat went dry and her hands clutched tight around one another. “Lady Moth has been terribly kind. We are—friends.”
Stephen’s gaze didn’t waver. “Friends who live in her house. Eating her food. Surrounded by her servants, who are paid with her fortune.”
Lucy’s temper spiked at this. “If it hurts your pride to see me living here where I have friends than sending me off to solitude in Lyme—”
“My god, Lucy, if it’s London you want, we’ll find you a place in town. Today,” Stephen burst out. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. All your work was with Father, before he died—you’ve never had a patron before in your life. And it can be...”
He trailed off, his face turning away beneath the wavering summer shadows.
Lucy took a deep breath. “It can be...?”
“Hard.” His features were stone, his eyes fixed on some faraway point. “You think you’re paid for your work, for your ideas and inspiration. But sometimes you find you’ve been paid for your obedience, too. Not just in regard to the object you’re creating—obedience in everything. There are people who will pay you well, very well, so long as you have not a single thought or desire—or friend—outside the ones they desire you to have.”
“Lady Moth isn’t like that.” Lucy sucked in lungfuls of air, heady with grass and earth and the last of the summer roses. She ought to tell Stephen the truth—that she and Lady Moth were in love.
But was that better, or worse? Less simple, certainly. It wasn’t the money she would miss, if Catherine cut her off someday.
Her brother’s words burrowed into her ears, and wouldn’t leave her. She hated how easy it would be to believe him. “You’re wrong.”
“I hope I am.” He grasped her hand, and Lucy almost sobbed at the amount of love and fear mingled in his expression. “The worst patrons—they prey on desperation,” her brother said. “Your safety lies in being able to walk away.”
Lucy swallowed hard.
Her brother’s hands were warm on hers, the feel of them familiar. They were like her father’s hands, she noticed suddenly—the same long, artistic fingers, the dusting of light brown hair. He gripped tighter. “You know I only want the best for you. We’re all the family we have. Well,” his lips quirked, “except for Aunt Annabelle.”
Lucy twisted her lips and hoped it passed for a smile.
Stephen hugged her and took his leave. Lucy sat for a while beneath the protective shade of the cherry tree. A movement in the corner of her eye had her gaze flickering upward—to the curtains in Catherine’s private sitting room, which were just slowing down to stillness again. As if a hand had twitched them briefly aside, then let them fall.
A week passed. Lucy had been unusually quiet, and Catherine had been more and more anxious about it. Old memories of George’s long silent spells haunted her like vengeful ghosts. Lucy had invited her along to a poetry reading with Mrs. Edwards, but Catherine had chosen to remain at home and work on the gown she was still embroidering for Lucy—the rings-of-Saturn design demanded a great deal of careful stitching, and the afternoon light was the kindest on her eyes.
Brinkworth brought in the post just as satin stitch was making her feel overly stabby, so Catherine decided to give her fingers a rest (if not her sight) and weed the more hateful missives from Lucy’s mail. They had slowed to a mere trickle now, but until they stopped entirely, Catherine was determined to position herself as a bulwark against the tide.
